In The Manner Of Borges I Write Poems In My Old Age
IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE
In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.
Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.
We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were
I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.
God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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After All The Endless Longing To Be Who We Are
IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE
In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.
Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.
We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were
I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.
God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.
THE REAL POETS
The real poets are few in number and largely known by name
The rest of us are endless frustration in aspiration
Words upon words upon words
Dreams upon dreams upon dreams
Getting and going nowhere forever unheard
The real poets find their anthologized place
And we know them over and over and over again
The rest of us just appear this only once
If we appear at all
And our words and our hearts and our minds
Do not encompass and inspire the endless rereadings
Time and Time’s Wounds make again and again and again
We are once only always forever losts
Nothing will save us
These words too coming in the wake of a long night’s reading
Of the poems of others
Cannot sustain and redeem
Cannot be what they would be
Cannot help and cannot save
Me or you or anyone we love
Even as poetry.
God Who Knows All
And in the End Decides on Everything
Has made us smaller even than the Angels
And our place in the Divine Song
Is not as far as we know
Anywhere heard at all.
Goodbye world
We are going
We have done what we could
We have written and written and written
Oxymandias’ poet will remain
And we will not
The lone and desert sands will stretch away
When we are not even a single grain.
THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH THE ENDLESS SILENCE OF THINGS
The world is filled with the endless silence of things
Dreams in old age are not the dreams of youth – and will never be
Old pain in old bodies stirs the imagination to anger at itself
The history of the universe begins somewhere long before we were born
And when Time ends more Time will not begin elsewhere
Parallel universes pose mathematical riddles to an evidence- hungry horde of physicists who live by supposition alone
And yet underneath it all we are biological beings – brains of our own misperceptions
Clamoring clamoring while on the other side of the moon
The cold goes deeper in us than all the distances we will never reach
Mites and Bites and Little Strings Digital waves and wiry wise things
We are all more than a cave painting with buffalo music beating in the fire
Under the darkness once
When we hunted with small eyes the body’s animal prey
Our spirit said mocking melodies of great and good sounds
Let the Maker of All be One in Love
And less than us may there never be new
The world we love and the people we trust
And the endless game of the transitions
This is a hell of a way to be who we are
And yet some say we are dust more than stars
And under the end of the forever we feel
Only our Names will remain not quite real.
AFTER ALL THE ENDLESS LONGING TO BE WHO WE ARE
After all the endless longing to be who we are
We come in old age to know what we dared never dream
That we as we are are less than we will forever be
And all that we have made is nothing beside
What God alone may make us should God have decided
That we are worth more than the interval here of our own small being
Dust is not enough
And will never be
For what we dream
For those we most love
Bones interred and epitaphs made righteous in stone
Cannot replace the vital thing of each breathing being
So so long ago
I knew when my grandmother died that she Bessie Zeibert- Peshie really- had so much love and goodness she should never be gone
Lost in her very last moments seeking a stolen sweater no one had ever taken
A sixteen year old girl in steerage with her first child who would never marry and live only to help his nephews and niece
God of Love
What are we
So many have died
So many good people
And I here officially an old man yet young enough to begin and thrive again in words
Questioning as I did then and knowing more and no more
We are the end and the beginning of the universe humanbeings kind or unkind
Light too is another name for death when it is forever too strong
I see I feel I know
We are what we are
And You will take us home
In a way we cannot dream now
Something so good as many of us have been
Must never die
And You Alone know how
We will survive
In the endless Infinite Eternity which no one who has ever lived can describe
Or truly understand.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The History Poems Have Not Been Written
The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa
poem by Shalom Freedman
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All I Can Do Is Write Poems
ALL I CAN DO IS WRITE POEMS
All I can do is write poems
I have nothing else to say-
Only what Poetry alone can give
The expression of the soul
The deepest feeling we have
Whatever is in us and hurts the most
And needs most to be said.
All I can do in pain is write poems
But when the gladness comes?
When the happiness returns?
I will try too to to find words
For what is unsayable.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Wrote A Poem I Could Not Write
I wrote a poem I could not write-
And then when I tried to write it again
Could not write it again -
Poems written and not written
Words and more words
What do they mean?
Paradoxes and games with words
What do they mean?
If there is Beauty in the language
It is one thing
But words just to hear themselves think,
Why should they mean ‘Remembrance'?
Oh Words oh Questions oh Darkness oh Life-
Let me write myself to the grave
Believing at least
That poems too even when they can be written
Have their small unhidden meanings.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Write Poetry
I write not poetry for the poor
for tears from their swelled up eyes
smudge and erase my words,
I write poetry not for the rich
for the splotches from their fat and cheese
hide my lines of wise,
I write poetry for not men to read
for in their skirmishes, poems are trashes
like beans spilled in pond full of slush,
I write poetry for the men not to read
for poems are little words, little music
little cry that the men cant touch or destroy,
poem by Saranyan Bee
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It Is A Habit
writing poems
when you really write poems
everyday and every moment of your life
even when you're in the middle of your
bread and butter eating thing
or even when you are defecating
writing poems becomes a habit
even when you sleep even when you dream
writing poems becomes a part of your system
you eat poetry you vomit poetry
you digest poetry you poo poetry
you breathe poetry you sweat poetry
you love poetry and you live with your poetry
and at the end you die with poetry
and your epitaph says: here lies the poet,
choked with poetry.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Poems I Write Give Meaning To My Life
The poems I write give meaning to my life.
But what are they for others?
Are they Poetry or just the sentences I happen to think?
The Poems I write give meaning to my life
But only in the time I am writing them
What they are afterward
Does not truly depend on me?
Meaning it seems is momentary for me
And the higher meaning of what will endure
Is a question I by myself however I write
Cannot answer.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Perhaps My Poems Have Already Been Written
PERHAPS MY POEMS HAVE ALREADY BEEN WRITTEN
Perhaps my poems have already been written
Perhaps it is all now senseless repetition
Perhaps I should just stop
And go on if I can to some other form of writing
God gives us what we have
We strive to go beyond ourselves
We can to a certain point
But then we have done what we have done
We can live a million years more
And write a million more poems
But what we have to write
Is done
Perhaps my poems have already been written
And small and poor and awkward as they are
Less than the truest poetry
They are what I have and am
Good-bye myself
I cannot go home.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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All The Poems Remain Written Where They Once Never Were
ALL THE POEMS REMAIN WRITTEN WHERE THEY ONCE NEVER WERE
All the poems remain written where they once never were
The grass and the skies of Whitman form lines in the mind of Baudelaire
The trees and dark cities of the distance form single sounds in the heart of the poet who cares
Night is more than darkness and day more than an early setting out
Each thing influences the other and calls back its own origins and end
We are going somewhere we will never know whether we write eternal lines or not
Over everywhere can be heard in the morning light the selfsame sound that through the heart of Ruth burned the alien corn
Keats is not dead, and Borges is not dead and Kafka is not dead and Wordsworth and all those who wrote great lines are not dead
Poetry is the last first eternity of the living word
And those who can hear the sounds of others greater than themselves in their own lines know
We are all writing down this last poem for ourselves and no one else
Though as we go to pray each morning the minyan tells us secretly
All our prayers together are more than any single poem can be alone
In the grey long distance where no one hears any poem at all
God writes and rewrites for us all the book of the stars in which dread is no longer a name
And beauty bright bright beauty is heard and reechoed as more than we will ever be
God is the only Poetry in the End
God is the Only One who never will be dead..
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Will I Still Write Poems When I Can No Longer Publish Or Post Them?
Will I still write poems when I can no longer publish or post them?
Of course I will-
I wrote poetry for years
when I knew their only readers were hoped- for ones-
I will write my poems
because they are my soul
my confessiion
my expression of deepest feeling
because they give meaning to my life-
I will write poemw as long as I can-
publish or post or not-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The time I discovered myself a Poet
I wouldnt say I was patient
but I have an interest in poetry
Is it the dawning of a new error
or will the sky be grey
I write how I see life and it is not always pleasant
I like to write abou experiences that I have been through
my poetry has changed as I ave changed
I see it as a hobby as I write in my grange
My poetry is mainly fiction but I also write about things that are true
I am not a person that would share alot of enthusiasim
poetry is a work of art
on each sheet of blank paper
I put my mark
Poetry is simple in this world of sin
I am not into shakesphere
what I write is authentic
the imagination on paper creates magic
a poem can change an atmosphere
I would like to say my poems mean something
my poems are meant to sting a mind
I want my poems to create pictures for people who are blind
poem by Natasha Browne
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Borges
BORGES
Life is a Story,
An Essay,
A Poem.
Its characters are not real -
Its lines are long,
Its rivers are in you
As you play games
With Time and Identity,
You write
And we see
readings
Never heard before.
Greater more humane writers
have been and will be-
But there is only one Borges.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Will Come A Day / When I No Longer Write
THERE WILL COME A DAY/ WHEN I NO LONGER WRITE
There will come a day
When I no longer write-
No dream of poetry
And no new poems will appear-
The world will have many new poems
As it always does-
But mine will not be among them-
As in life so in poetry
We are in our own small worlds all- only to ourselves-
‘Horseman pass by’ said Yeats as his good- bye.
But who was Yeats,
And who am I?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Are Days No Poem Can Be Written
THERE ARE DAYS NO POEM CAN BE WRITTEN
There are days no poem can be written
Grief and worry frighten the poem away
Yet the poem lives hidden
For our darkest moments our loneliest fears
Too need their poetry.
Poetry is a way of saying all we need to say
It is our deepest feeling most deeply expressed
It is all we are
The whole of our being
In words.
When a poet dies
Words die
When I will die
All I am will no longer be able to write
One more poem.
How afraid I am in the night
And how dark in the early morning before I rise
But now that I am here
Writing this
A bit of hope begins in me
And I can dream that
When I walk out the door
a few minutes from now
A new day will begin.
How many days I have left
How many poems to write
I do not know.
It is not light yet
And the darkness is still here
But I will feel the morning again
This morning
Thank G-d
You have given me so many poems.
A few small words
help me believe
I truly am alive.
.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poems Became The Story Of My Inner Life
THE POEMS BECAME THE STORY OF MY INNER LIFE
The poems became the story of my inner life-
A series of confessions-
Often simple and direct
They seemed to lose their poetry-
I wrote them and I write them as I need to
I do not know if their rhythm is real
Or only prose-
I write them as poetry
Because this is what I am and have now-
Still the overwhelming anxiety I have now suggests
I always in them tell only a small part of the story
As if the feeling inside
Is always more than any poetry that pretends to express and represent it –
If I doubt the value of this poem and doubt the value of all my poetry and doubt my own value, poetry or not, and doubt and doubt-
Then certainly ‘doubt’ is one keynote of my inner life and story.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I don't
Many people write
For their true emotions to unravel
Out of depression, angst, spite
But I can’t
I don’t write poems when I’m sad
They write from their experiences
When he left me
When they died
Bringing tears, causing cries
But I can’t
I don’t write when I’m sad
The tears dutifully stain my cheek
And roll on and on
Through and through
Down
Down
Down
But I can’t
And I don’t write poems when I’m sad
And all the anger and sadness
Thrust inside of me
Just bursting to get out
Screaming
Pleading
Begging to get out
But they can’t
Because I don’t write poems when I’m sad
And I don’t know what to do
How to express my pain
And woe, and the feeling
It drains me, and it shows
But there’s nothing I can do
Because I don’t ever write poetry when I’m sad
The Poems Went Away
THE POEMS WENT AWAY
The poems went away.
Nothing inside.
An empty will for poetry
Forcing words on the page,
Words without music
Without resonance
Without great implication
Meaning.
Write, write, write
Lest you die.
And the words themselves
A kind of desperate uphill catching of breath
On the page.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poems Bring Me Back To Myself
THE POEMS BRING ME BACK TO MYSELF
The poems bring me back to myself
I begin to live again –
Without the poems
I would have to make a new life-
I do not know if I am capable of it-
A life without poems without poetry
With other words perhaps-
I am too old to slowly write the long narrative
I never was capable of before
Little poems
Little lines
What I am capable of now.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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We Need New Poems
WE NEED NEW POEMS
We need new Poems-
So many great Poems
Have already been written.
Perhaps the Greatest poems
Have already been written.
But we need new poems.
We need our Poems
We need the poems only we can write
We need the poems we must write.
We need new poems
My poems
Your poems
Our poems.
We need new poems.
Let us write them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem I Would Write Now-Can Be Written In Seconds
THE POEM I WOULD WRITE NOW/ CAN BE WRITTEN IN SECONDS
The poem I would write now
Can be written in seconds -
A small poem
Easy to remember
A poem which will give hope and happiness
To others-
Who also write poetry
And dream of their own poems
As I do of mine.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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